Tuesday, June 4, 2013

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

“I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before
you've actually left them.”

I love television, a little too much at
times, but I’m not a nutcase who goes around quoting fictional characters to
impart life lessons. Okay, sometimes I am that nutcase. Andy Bernard’s quote
from The Office finale has been haunting
me for a couple of weeks now. As I witness me and my friends grappling with the
daily anxieties that inevitably accompany life as a “grown-up”, I can’t help but
reminisce about the good old days in high school and college when I spent my
time thinking about tests, crushes, parties and the Future.

Well, the Future has arrived, and in many
ways it is filled with more laughter and love than I could have ever imagined. But
let’s face it. Life is hard. We are all bone-tired. It feels like we are now bombarded
on a weekly basis with some horrific news story that takes place across the
country, or sometimes right in our backyards. No matter how blessed any of us
feels, it’s hard not to long for simpler times.

Recently, Little Bro “graduated” from his gym
class. While this won’t be the most significant graduation of his lifetime (I’m
hoping) it did encourage me to pause and think about how time has just flown by. I was suddenly nostalgic for all of
the times I had watched my little one so proudly attempt to walk on the balance
beam or try to make a basket with the big bouncy ball.Yet while I loved observing
Little Bro blossom in his first gym class, I have to admit that during class
I could occasionally be caught checking my watch or (gasp!) my phone. There
were many times when I was completely focused on the flip that my son was about
to do, but there were also times I could be caught taking mental notes for a future
blog or figuring out if I had time after class to buy gifts for the birthday
parties we were attending that weekend.

Nowadays, I find myself caught between longing
for The Future, when my young boys are a little older and I have a little
more freedom, and The Past, when my boys were little babies who cuddled
and cooed and seemed to do something new every day. Little Bro is finally a one-year-old. He can finally feed himself and
allow me a few minutes to feed myself! We can go out in public and not worry that
we will have to leave an event after twenty minutes because we’ve already gone
through the three changes of clothes we brought! We can sleep through the night
again (most of the time)!

And yet I still find myself pining for them
to be infants once more. Look at how he
just falls asleep in my arms! Did you see how he rolled over for the first
time!! How cute is he when he spits out the banana?!

If I keep thinking about The Past, or longing
for The Future to arrive, I doubt I’ll be able to enjoy much of anything.

That’s why I’m going to try and make Today
the “good old days”. You can follow me on Facebook or Twitter